She read the poem at a San Francisco City Hall memorial, and the gathered crowd, young black people from her own Hunters Point and from Potrero Hill and the Fillmore, passed the hat and sent the 19-year-old mother of two to represent them at King's funeral in Atlanta.

"It was scary and real sad. Like a member of our family died," said Ross, now 59. "He was our everything. All our hopes were in him. He was our hope for the future, and we were afraid ... like we would be killed if we stood up."

That fear lasted all her life.

Until now. Until Nov. 4, 2008, when a black man named Barack Obama was elected president of the United States of America.

Ross cast her own vote near her home in Pittsburg. She walked home with a flag in her hand and a song on her lips. Hallelujah, she sang, over and over. Hallelujah.

"It's like Martin Luther King's dream coming true. Because he said it was going to happen," she said. "We've came a long way. A lot of people are still narrow-minded, but we have come a loooong way for him to come this far. People have woken up."

Across the Bay Area, black citizens of all ages and classes shared Ross's elation. For some, the happiness was tempered by bitter experience; others were too overjoyed to see anything but hope.

Jubilation burst onto the street at the Bayview Commons at La Salle Avenue and Third Street in San Francisco where about 20 people spilled out of the low-income housing complex to bang pots and urge passing cars to honk.

"We went from the outhouse to the White House!" exulted Lorri Terry, a special education teacher at Burton High School. "We went from discrimination to Obama nation."

Even a veteran political observer like former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown sounded shaken.

"Not in my lifetime would I have assumed that a person with one drop of African blood in him could be elected to the presidency," he said.

Across the bay, Jean Carey, 44, an administrative assistant, wept at a boisterous celebration at the Everett and Jones restaurant in Oakland.

"I started thinking about all of my relatives who couldn't have done this, and I started getting really emotional and crying," said Carey. Across the room, Benten Brown, 62, hoisted a sign that read, "This day is for Dr. King and all those who fought and died for the equal rights of all people."

"I'm a Jim Crow baby," said Brown, who said his grandfather was a slave in Georgia. "This day is an incredible feeling for me and everybody."

Black Americans have seen enormous changes in the 40 years since The Chronicle published Johnnie Marie Ross's story under the headline "A Ghetto Eulogy." Lashawn James, 29, said that when his mother was born in South Carolina, most black people were denied the right to vote. Today, her son has an MBA from Stanford and is working at a private equity firm in Oakland.

"To look from where she was to where we are now is what makes this very special. Because of the sacrifices (my mother) had to go through to put me where I am," he said.

His friend and classmate, Sean Haywood, 30, said the election of Obama "means we are all justified in dreaming bigger from now on. It doesn't necessarily mean everything is attainable, but it means we certainly have the right to dream."

But does this election fulfill King's dream?

"We're so far away from fulfilling (King's) dream that it's tragic," said Shelby Steele, a scholar on race at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "The reality on the ground is that the black-white achievement gap is worse than it ever was, 55 percent of all federal prisoners are black, the illegitimacy rate is over 70 percent. So the reality is there is no parity between blacks and white."

"To me, Obama's election is a step forward in the direction I think we need to go," said Jim Sleeper, a lecturer in political science at Yale and author of "Liberal Racism: How Fixating on Race Subverts the American Dream."

To Sleeper and some other academics, the election of Obama is the latest step in a long journey for black Americans, from the end of slavery and the beginning of the civil rights movement, through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Shirley Chisholm's run for president in 1972, Jesse Jackson's runs in 1984 and 1988, and President Bush's appointments of Colin Powell and then Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state.

"There is a generational change," Sleeper said. "I think it will have a profound effect."

It could have an even greater impact on the next generation, said Santerria McGilbra, 35, a marketing executive in San Francisco.

"This will change how children in this country think. Children who never knew what they couldn't do will grow up knowing a black man can be president."

"It's not about skin color," said Hawkins. "He's really devoted to the people. People are talking about how he's going to change the world."

But Obama's success in deemphasizing race in his campaign calls into question how black people will view his presidency, Steele argued.

"It makes other blacks extremely nervous, because the black identity for 40 years has been based in challenging, in saying you're a racist unless you prove otherwise," he said. "Whites have always been, and will remain, Obama's political base. Not blacks."

But the focus on confronting racism is not the only perspective in politics today, Harris said. There are also people like Mark Collins, a union worker from Hercules, who see a need for the black community to bootstrap itself to success.

"(Obama's) been a great representative of ours, and maybe our people need to step up their game and be good representatives for him," Collins said. "Doing the right things, helping out, lessening the violence, answering this bell."

But at her home in Pittsburg, Johnnie Marie Ross wasn't thinking about the future. Surrounded by her cheering family, she was thinking about the now.

"Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. This is unbelievable. How great God is," she said. "I've got to write. I've got to put it in writing. Just like I did with Martin Luther King."

Obama supporter Bettye Randle held an election night pot-luck party at her Richmond home,inviting her closest friends to watch the election returns and witness an historic night. Duration: 2:45.

Media: San Francisco Chronicle

April 8, 1968 - Johnnie Marie Ross was sent to Atlanta to attend Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968.

April 8, 1968 - Johnnie Marie Ross was sent to Atlanta to attend Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968.

Photo: Jerry Telfer, The Chronicle

Photo: Jerry Telfer, The Chronicle

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April 8, 1968 - Johnnie Marie Ross was sent to Atlanta to attend Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968.

April 8, 1968 - Johnnie Marie Ross was sent to Atlanta to attend Dr. Martin Luther King's funeral in 1968.